The British Grass court season has begun! Bring on the grass, bring on the fun. Tennis how it was meant to be played – after all it was invented in Britain on the grass.

There are several events on the calender during this short period, unfortunately the length of the grass court season is the shortest of all of the surfaces, beginning in June and ending with the big one in July, I do of course refer to Wimbledon. With challenger events and WTA and ATP 250/500 events there are plenty of tournaments for the lower ranked and big names to play to get ready for Wimbledon. This year there is an additional grass court event for British tennis fans to get excited about (and one that will break with tradition, and will allow yelling screaming and noisey blowers), that is the Davis Cup tie between GB and France that will take place at the Queens Club, the week after Wimbledon.

James Ward has entered additional tournaments during the grass court season on the challenger circuit before going to Nottingham and Queens. So far he has been playing doubles and singles in both and in Manchester reached the QF before he, and the other British players who had got that far, were defeated.

The WTA Nottingham event has started this week, and the top seed is Aga Radwanska, who has had a bit of an off season so far this year, including a defeat to Heather Watson (which was Heathers first win over a top 10 player). Radwanska has progressed through the first round safely in a routine straight sets win, Heather Watson was entered here, but following an elbow injury sustained during Roland Garros, she withdrew to rest her elbow in the hopes of making a recovery in time for Wimbledon, so a match up on grass here between them unfortunately was ruled out. Still to come are Eastbourne (WTA), Birmingham (WTA), Queens (ATP), Nottingham (ATP) and Wimbledon.

There are so many tournaments in this short period of time for the grass court lovers, they could be travelling all over the country following the players around, some of the events do not have the really big names in their player lists (as the very top players tend to not play many events before Wimbledon on the grass, but Queens is the one to catch for the top line up, with Andy Murray, Wawrinka, Nadal, Grigor Dimtrov the headliners here).

It's a great time to be a tennis fan, with the tour returning to the green, green grass of home.

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